The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (188 page)
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Authors: Iain McLean
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Office of Management and Budget
(OMB)
(OMB)
US executive agency, created in its present form in 1970, with responsibility for the preparation and administration of the federal budget. The OMB was established to increase the President's control over the federal bureaucracy.
oligarchy
Government by the few. The logically exclusive categories of government by one, the few, or the many have been widely deployed, but the terminology has varied. For example,
aristocracy
is a form of government by the few.
Aristotle
distinguished between rulers who govern in the general interest (aristocracy) and rulers who govern in their own interest (oligarchy). Sociologists have made claims about a necessary connection between organization and oligarchy. See also élites; iron law of oligarchy.
AR
aristocracy
is a form of government by the few.
Aristotle
distinguished between rulers who govern in the general interest (aristocracy) and rulers who govern in their own interest (oligarchy). Sociologists have made claims about a necessary connection between organization and oligarchy. See also élites; iron law of oligarchy.
AR
oligopoly
Market in which there are few sellers, so that they can control the price and/or quantity of goods supplied, by explicit collusion or game-theoretic strategy. Most political markets, such as the market in which political parties sell policies, are oligopolistic.
ombudsman
Term of Scandinavian origin, the relevant meaning of which is grievance officer. Hence, throughout Europe an ombudsman is a public official who investigates citizens complaints against maladministration in specified areas of public administration. Great Britain has three types: the parliamentary commissioner for administration (PCA, created 1967); the health service commissioners (HSC, 1973); and the commissioners for local administration (CLA, 1976). By international comparison the number of cases examined by British ombudsmen is low; a fact often taken as an indication of high standards in British public administration, but at least in part a function of public ignorance of the existence and role of ombudsmen. MPs and local government are keen not to see alternative figures of public accountability arise at the expense of their perceived competence, and have therefore underresourced ombudsmen. The highly restrictive jurisdiction of ombudsmen also means that many complaints cannot be investigated. See also
judicial review
; maladministration.
JBr
judicial review
; maladministration.
JBr
one-party states
Those states where a single party is accorded a legal or
de facto
monopoly of formal political activity. This may be enforced under the constitution, or it may be a consequence of denying rival parties access to the electorate, or of a failure to consult the electorate at all. Alternatively, the electorate may be selectively defined, or consultation be otherwise manipulated, so as to ensure the return of the governing party. Until recently one-party states came under two main categories: so-called totalitarian states, mostly but not exclusively communist and East European; and numerous Third World states where authoritarian regimes have long had recourse to a single party to control administration, mobilize support, and supervise distribution of the available patronage. With the collapse or transformation of most of the communist parties, the term one-party state is now largely confined to areas of the Third World, including some former republics and autonomous territories of the Soviet Union. It is distinct from the dominant party system where, as in postwar Italy or post-independence India, a single party has predominated in central government, but sometimes sharing power and within an otherwise competitive party system with representative institutions.
Even in the Third World the one-party state has been subject recently to pressures for democratization. International aid and assistance have increasingly become conditional on good governance and a display of multiparty democracy. For nearly half a century Mexico was a classic example of the one-party state with government, administration, the economy, and the armed forces monopolized by the Institutionalized Party of the Revolution (PRI). By combining the surviving revolutionary leaders, the intelligentsia, the unions, and the military, PRI came to occupy a dominant position at the centre and in the regions. However, it has recently been forced to accord rather more than token recognition to other political parties. This was largely as a consequence of Mexico's economic growth and diversification, demands for greater technical and administrative competence, and acknowledgement of the role of official corruption in aggravating the domestic debt crisis. Similar pressures have recently been at work elsewhere in Central and South America and in South and Southeast Asia.
The one-party state remains most entrenched in Africa where it appeared shortly after independence and was able to draw on a legacy of autocratic colonial rule, with only a brief experience of contested elections at the very end of decolonization. In a few cases, as in former Tanganyika, effective opposition to the ruling party had disappeared even before independence. Everywhere the ruling party had very considerable advantages denied its opponents. Starting as a successful nationalist movement or front, it was able soon after independence to profit from its control of the state and the expanded patronage now readily available. It sought to secure itself in office by suppressing its opponents. Usually, elections were restricted, or closely controlled, or replaced by the occasional plebiscite. Preventive Detention Acts, an unfortunate legacy of colonial rule, were revived and used extensively. The one-party state was presented as a means of achieving national unity, overcoming ethnic separatism, and hastening economic development and national independence. In most cases it was simply an adjunct of personal rule with the party confined in a strictly limited and essentially subordinate role: little more than an agency for recruitment to the government, a conduit for political patronage, and a check on the loyalty of the armed forces and the civil service.
Such regimes were particularly vulnerable to military intervention. In some cases, as in Zaire under President Mobutu Sese Seko , the party was soon replaced by a loose but elaborate patron-client network, with no discernible ideology and with the president at the centre. Ideology and party structure were more prominent, briefly, in the Marxist-Leninist states that emerged in the 1970s, notably in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and Ethiopia. But again populist rhetoric served only to confirm the reality of personal rule, whether in the guise of a civilian or military dictatorship. Thus President Haile Mariam Mengistu long resisted Soviet (and Cuban) pressure for the creation of a Workers' Party in an ostensibly Marxist-Leninist regime. The ruling party has had rather more significance in Tunisia, Algeria, and Tanzania, where it was entrenched before independence and where the leadership has accorded it more scope. In Kenya and Tanzania the one-party system, permitting limited debate and multiple candidatures, has served the regime as a useful safety valve for the expression of otherwise latent discontent.
Since 1989 the African one-party states have been under mounting domestic and international pressure to liberalize both politically and economically. This was a sequel to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, coupled with the deteriorating debt situation in Africa and insistence on democratization as a condition for further international aid. Some African states, notably Botswana and the Gambia, have had a continuous history of contested elections, which, however, did not threaten the ruling party. Others, like Senegal since the 1970s, have experimented first with limited, and then with unrestricted, party competition, but without a change of government. With the 1990s, however, entrenched one-party regimes became vulnerable in the changing domestic and international environment. In the French-speaking states, representative national conferences were convened with the self-appointed task of drafting new constitutions and supervising free and open elections. By this means incumbent rulers were forced to quit in Benin, Congo, Niger, and eventually Madagascar. In Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Gabon the ruling party claims to have defeated the opposition in elections whose fairness is, however, contested. In Algeria the transition from a one-party state, under the FLN, was already well advanced until the military intervened to reverse the process, fearing a landslide victory by the Islamic opposition party (FIS).
In English-speaking Africa free elections were conceded in Zambia by President Kaunda , UNIP leader, who was then himself defeated. President Arap Moi relaxed his opposition to multiparty elections in Kenya, previously a one-party state
de jure
, and won a plurality of votes mainly because of a split in the opposition ranks. President Mugabe remains committed to making Zimbabwe a one-party socialist state, but his own party, ZANU, has distanced itself from the proposal. Meanwhile Tanzania has promised multiparty elections in 1995, and President Banda of Malawi has lost a referendum on one-party rule. The former Marxist regimes in Mozambique and Angola have both finally conceded elections, on a multiparty basis, but in neither case is a democratic outcome assured. Most important, the ruling National Party in South Africa, entrenched in government since 1948, held democratic elections in 1994 in which it came a distant second to the
ANC
.
IC
de facto
monopoly of formal political activity. This may be enforced under the constitution, or it may be a consequence of denying rival parties access to the electorate, or of a failure to consult the electorate at all. Alternatively, the electorate may be selectively defined, or consultation be otherwise manipulated, so as to ensure the return of the governing party. Until recently one-party states came under two main categories: so-called totalitarian states, mostly but not exclusively communist and East European; and numerous Third World states where authoritarian regimes have long had recourse to a single party to control administration, mobilize support, and supervise distribution of the available patronage. With the collapse or transformation of most of the communist parties, the term one-party state is now largely confined to areas of the Third World, including some former republics and autonomous territories of the Soviet Union. It is distinct from the dominant party system where, as in postwar Italy or post-independence India, a single party has predominated in central government, but sometimes sharing power and within an otherwise competitive party system with representative institutions.
Even in the Third World the one-party state has been subject recently to pressures for democratization. International aid and assistance have increasingly become conditional on good governance and a display of multiparty democracy. For nearly half a century Mexico was a classic example of the one-party state with government, administration, the economy, and the armed forces monopolized by the Institutionalized Party of the Revolution (PRI). By combining the surviving revolutionary leaders, the intelligentsia, the unions, and the military, PRI came to occupy a dominant position at the centre and in the regions. However, it has recently been forced to accord rather more than token recognition to other political parties. This was largely as a consequence of Mexico's economic growth and diversification, demands for greater technical and administrative competence, and acknowledgement of the role of official corruption in aggravating the domestic debt crisis. Similar pressures have recently been at work elsewhere in Central and South America and in South and Southeast Asia.
The one-party state remains most entrenched in Africa where it appeared shortly after independence and was able to draw on a legacy of autocratic colonial rule, with only a brief experience of contested elections at the very end of decolonization. In a few cases, as in former Tanganyika, effective opposition to the ruling party had disappeared even before independence. Everywhere the ruling party had very considerable advantages denied its opponents. Starting as a successful nationalist movement or front, it was able soon after independence to profit from its control of the state and the expanded patronage now readily available. It sought to secure itself in office by suppressing its opponents. Usually, elections were restricted, or closely controlled, or replaced by the occasional plebiscite. Preventive Detention Acts, an unfortunate legacy of colonial rule, were revived and used extensively. The one-party state was presented as a means of achieving national unity, overcoming ethnic separatism, and hastening economic development and national independence. In most cases it was simply an adjunct of personal rule with the party confined in a strictly limited and essentially subordinate role: little more than an agency for recruitment to the government, a conduit for political patronage, and a check on the loyalty of the armed forces and the civil service.
Such regimes were particularly vulnerable to military intervention. In some cases, as in Zaire under President Mobutu Sese Seko , the party was soon replaced by a loose but elaborate patron-client network, with no discernible ideology and with the president at the centre. Ideology and party structure were more prominent, briefly, in the Marxist-Leninist states that emerged in the 1970s, notably in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and Ethiopia. But again populist rhetoric served only to confirm the reality of personal rule, whether in the guise of a civilian or military dictatorship. Thus President Haile Mariam Mengistu long resisted Soviet (and Cuban) pressure for the creation of a Workers' Party in an ostensibly Marxist-Leninist regime. The ruling party has had rather more significance in Tunisia, Algeria, and Tanzania, where it was entrenched before independence and where the leadership has accorded it more scope. In Kenya and Tanzania the one-party system, permitting limited debate and multiple candidatures, has served the regime as a useful safety valve for the expression of otherwise latent discontent.
Since 1989 the African one-party states have been under mounting domestic and international pressure to liberalize both politically and economically. This was a sequel to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, coupled with the deteriorating debt situation in Africa and insistence on democratization as a condition for further international aid. Some African states, notably Botswana and the Gambia, have had a continuous history of contested elections, which, however, did not threaten the ruling party. Others, like Senegal since the 1970s, have experimented first with limited, and then with unrestricted, party competition, but without a change of government. With the 1990s, however, entrenched one-party regimes became vulnerable in the changing domestic and international environment. In the French-speaking states, representative national conferences were convened with the self-appointed task of drafting new constitutions and supervising free and open elections. By this means incumbent rulers were forced to quit in Benin, Congo, Niger, and eventually Madagascar. In Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Gabon the ruling party claims to have defeated the opposition in elections whose fairness is, however, contested. In Algeria the transition from a one-party state, under the FLN, was already well advanced until the military intervened to reverse the process, fearing a landslide victory by the Islamic opposition party (FIS).
In English-speaking Africa free elections were conceded in Zambia by President Kaunda , UNIP leader, who was then himself defeated. President Arap Moi relaxed his opposition to multiparty elections in Kenya, previously a one-party state
de jure
, and won a plurality of votes mainly because of a split in the opposition ranks. President Mugabe remains committed to making Zimbabwe a one-party socialist state, but his own party, ZANU, has distanced itself from the proposal. Meanwhile Tanzania has promised multiparty elections in 1995, and President Banda of Malawi has lost a referendum on one-party rule. The former Marxist regimes in Mozambique and Angola have both finally conceded elections, on a multiparty basis, but in neither case is a democratic outcome assured. Most important, the ruling National Party in South Africa, entrenched in government since 1948, held democratic elections in 1994 in which it came a distant second to the
ANC
.
IC
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